Key Note Speech at Conference on Climate Change and Human Rights

Excellencies,

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is an honour to address this important conference on Climate Change and Human Rights - Ensuring Action and Justice for all. I want to begin by thanking the hosts of this conference for convening us – the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions, the local office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and our European Union Delegation. It is a real pleasure to be here with you in Seoul. Thank you for your kind invitation.

I’m certain that we meet at juncture in time where we don’t only have the necessity but the possibility to act and that all of us gathered here today have a key role to play in this regard. 

It is evidently clear that the accelerating, deepening and mutually reinforcing triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution continue to have a massive adverse impact on the full and effective enjoyment of human rights across the globe. Only these past months forest fires have ravaged in Brazil as they have in Portugal with severe impacts, including on the right to health. Floods have forced people to leave their homes, in Central Europe as they did in South East Asia.

Here in the Republic of Korea, last year was the hottest year on record with an unprecedented number of days with heat waves, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (NB: Since 1973 when the country introduced modern meteorological observation systems). This confirms the global trend – earlier this year, the World Meteorological Organization confirmed that 2023 was, by a huge margin, the warmest year for the entire planet. The annual average global temperature approached 1.5 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels, almost matching the Paris Agreement’s long-term objective.

Climate change is a real danger for humanity, a threat multiplier exacerbating other challenges we face today such as the proliferation of conflicts. In every location, those living in the most vulnerable situations are the hardest hit. It is the youngest and the oldest members of our societies, those living and working in conditions of poverty and those without the means to adapt to a changing climate.

These are rarely the individuals sitting on the decision-making power nor on the vested interest in maintaining status quo. Still they are making their voices heard, many at great personal risk. And they are pushing us in front of them towards action and justice. Let me give a few examples:

1. Environmental human rights defenders belonging to indigenous people or other minorities are often the first to register and call for action on environmental degradation, in many cases in conflict with economic interests. They provide important early warning information, yet they are far to often harassed, intimidated and even killed. Activism in relation to mining, often related to critical raw materials used for the green transition, continues to be a high-risk area also here in Asia, where 40% of reported deaths occurred during the last 10 years. This is unacceptable. As the EU we are providing emergency support for human rights defenders at risk. Through grants, human rights defenders have received support for temporary relocation, legal costs, medical costs and to finance protection measures for their offices and communities. In 2023, through the Protect Defenders programme, the EU supported nearly 875 environmental defenders. Beyond the immediate rescue, there needs to come a shift in perspective of the value of the work of human rights defenders on environment and climate issues. That is why my colleagues in EU Delegations around the world regularly organise meetings with human rights defenders, monitor their trials or visit them in detention.
2. In my country Sweden Greta Thunberg, then a child, begun her weekly school strike to demand action against climate change from her national parliamentarians, an act of protest echoed by thousands more in the Global youth movement Friday for Future. 
3. Here in the Republic of Korea, the Constitutional Court presented its milestone decision on August 29 on the basis of a case presented by 255 plaintiffs, many of them children, establishing the responsibility of the state to take positive measures against climate change to protect the human rights of its citizens, and in particular the younger generation. This was the first country in Asia to decide on the matter. In Europe, it was the KlimaSeniorinnen, a group of older women in Switzerland, who presented a case to, on which the European Court of Human Rights clarified the responsibility of the state to take positive action to prevent climate change to protect their right to health. States need to take their climate change obligations seriously. Climate litigation is linked to the realization of human rights.  

We would be wiser to recognize that it is not only our responsibility, but in our own interest, to ensure civic participation on all levels of decision making on climate related matters, including in the multilateral negotiations. Here, I want to highlight that the EU has called on the host country of COP29, to demonstrate that the government is committed to the protection of human rights, the rule of law, and a free and independent civil society and media landscape by ensuring that civil society can safely and fully participate and by guaranteeing free access to information and freedom of assembly, including an uninhibited media coverage of the conference.

Thanks to the action of states, national human rights institutions, courts, civil society and the private sector we are making important inroads towards action and justice for human rights in relation to climate change.

We already see how framing Climate Change as a matter of human rights has boosted the discussion on climate change mitigation and adaption in many countries as citizens take to the courts to claim their rights. Through the jurisprudence from national, regional, and international courts, a more solid legal guidance has emerged. The recognition of a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right has been an important milestone as has been the appointment of a dedicated UN Special Rapporteur.

I’m glad to share the floor here today with Special Rapporteur Elisa Morgera. The EU fully supports and promotes your mandate and your work to provide further guidance and shed light on the situation of human rights in relations to climate change. The rich body of findings and recommendations produced by the UN system play a crucial role in strengthening an evidence-based international policymaking on environmental protection and climate change.

Let me now turn to the action and here I wish to start at home with the European Union. The EU bears a large responsibility to ensure climate action. As one of the most economically developed areas in the world, we are among those who emit and have emitted in the past the most greenhouse gases responsible for climate change. We are acting at home to limit emissions. The EU Climate Law makes climate neutrality by mid-century a legally binding commitment, and raises EU’s greenhouse gas emission reduction target from previously 40% to at least 55% in 2030, compared to 1990. However, target setting is the easier part. Implementation is the harder and decisive part. The EU is now also walking the talk with the ‘Fit for 55’ package aiming at ensuring a cost-effective yet fair transition, while ensuring that the most vulnerable people and actors get the necessary help to adjust to the radical changes underway in transport, housing or employment. We have been reminded this last year that there is no way forward on climate action other than by ensuring that all parts of society are invested in the green transition.

We know that the world looks at the EU to lead the way and climate action is a central pillar also of our external action, combining the European Green Deal’s domestic and international dimensions. Global Gateway has placed the green transition centre-stage in our international partnerships. Over 2021-27, the goal is to ensure that 35% of the EU’s external budget contributes to climate action, and 10% to biodiversity protection.

Environment is one of the pillars of the EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy (2020-2027), the roadmap of my own mandate.

We are actively engaged in multilateral processes, raising human rights in the environmental fora and environmental issues in human rights fora. The renewal of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on climate change that a group of states and the EU present and that was adopted by the Human Rights Council last week, is a clear example.

We are putting our money where our mouth is. The EU and its member states are global leaders on climate financing. In 2022, the European Union and its 27 member states contributed €28.5 billion in climate finance from public sources and mobilized an additional amount of €11.9 billion of private finance to support developing countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. Several of these projects are conducted in the Asia-Pacific region such as the Just Energy Transition Partnership with Indonesia and Vietnam. We also fund the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions and their work on how National Human Rights Institutions can support the integration of human rights into all levels of decision making. Human rights institutions play an important role to ensure that global commitments trickle down to a myriad of decisions, many at very local levels on everything from city planning to work place regulations.

In the EU we are currently expanding our tool box from legislation to trade facilitation to push for human rights due diligence in relation to the environment with new legislation on deforestation and sustainable due diligence being rolled out next year. These legislative initiatives move from voluntary to mandatory regulations on business and human rights, make clear that large private companies bear a responsibility to ensure that their operations cause no harm in relation to human rights and the environment.

I highlight these actions not to applaud ourselves, but to say that we recognize our responsibility and act upon it. There is too much of finger pointing in the global climate debate of today and it helps no one except those trying to get off the hook on action. And when it comes to human rights and climate change no one is off the hook. All States have the equal responsibility to fully respect, protect and promote human rights. And all of us are sharing an ever hotter planet. It is a high time to join hands and get to work, individually and together to ensure action for human rights and for the environment we live in.

I thank you for your attention.